Lucky 'n Love

The last time I updated, it was the day before Valentines-the official day of love.  We have had lots of love going around here since then, with a sprinkle of luck, or at least our lucky little lady.

Valentines Day was celebrated with our annual 'fancy dinner/dancing date.' 

The love talk must have made an impression (and correlation) with the three year old because he frequently tells me, "Mom, I love you.  We should dance together."  So, we bust out some slow dances all the time, even as he is in his birthday suit in standing in the bath.  But, when you feel the love, you've got to show it!

Plus, I take the affectionate declarations when I can get them, because as the oldest has the teens on the horizon, those declarations have dwindled significantly...and are even sometimes replaced with looks of disgust and or humiliation.  But, he won't get out of dancing with his female family members easily.  Can't wait till we force it on him next year! 

Later in February, Katelee was lucky enough to accompany Dave on a work trip to Atlanta.  He had a convention and she got to spend a day with Aunt Anna.  

 They shopped and had a mani/pedi, went to eat together and met up with Dave later.  She was completely spoiled as she stayed at the Ritz Carlton with her pop and got some one on one time at the Coca Cola Factory.  She had lots of fun, of course!

 Katelee got to miss one day of school, which she was pretty stoked about, but she was back in time to go to Matilda with us.  

It was so great...and really hard to not sing a long!

Katelee loves rounding out the birthday season at the beginning of the year (poor Harrison, he doesn't get why it's not his turn for a day, yet. Curse the August birthday!) She has been planning her friend party ever since she discovered that the movie Beauty and the Beast was being released on her very birthday!  

We invited a lot of friends and went to the theatre to see it on St Patrick's Day.  

We all loved the movie! There is Amelia, Breanna, Capri, Nicole, Pyper, Hailey, Katelee, Brylee, Emily and Peyton.   We came back for donuts and presents and then each girl was sent home with a rose.  It wasn't an enchanted rose, my magic had all run out, but I'd still say it was pretty awesome.  

We had to run to play practice and then we came home for Katelee's birthday dinner (chicken tacos this year) with Shannon and grandma.  Dinner was followed by cake and ice cream

and presents.  I can't get the pictures to load, but we had a happy little tweener as she was decked out in a new hat, scarf and toting her new luggage set around.  Katelee is such a great girl and we are so happy to have her in our family.  Katelee is a stellar student and is really smart, she shares a lot of what she learns, like when it was a particularly cloudy day, she exclaimed, "Oh my, there is a lot of stratus today." She is very sharp and thoughtful-we love her!

It was an especially busy St Patrick's day because we had all of the birthday girl festivities and we had to pack up for an early morning flight the next day to head to Napa, California for Brian's wedding.  

We were so excited to be a part of Brooke and Brian's special day.  Katelee and Brenna were beautiful little flower girls (along with Karlie and another girl on Brooke's side) 

We had a lovely dinner to celebrate the happy couple 

The dinner may have been a little less elegant than it could have been considering the knife fights that kept breaking out...

But, at least the guests were happy.  After dinner, it was time to party and party we did.  

The family rocked the dance floor like nothing you've seen before.  Brenna leaped across the room, probably knocking out a few wedding party guests and Katelee's face was so red from her dancing moves, we had to keep sending her outside to air out.  It may be the last time we are invited to a reception, but it was memorable! Ha! 

It gave us an opportunity to celebrate love,

 enjoy the beautiful Napa Valley, 

get away and have fun.  Mostly, we were thrilled for Brian and Brooke and loved getting to make memories with our McArthur family that we don't get to spend enough time with!

No matter the years and distance, it's great to be family.  

On my side of the family, grandma had surgery and the kids took cards when we visited her in the hospital.  Harrison, opted to take his doctor's bag instead.  Other cards were taken to her on her birthday and Brenna's read something like this, "Happy Birthday!  So glad you are 72.  You are really old.  I bet you love old numbers."  Isn't it great to know that family has to love you just because you're relations?!

Now on to April, which means dance and dance competitions, Easter, spring break, soccer for two, play practice, scouts, activity days, field trips, school, and the fun that happens around the house.  A couple of our house mates have become obsessed with the movie Moana.  One in particular believes he needs to be Maui everyday.  Maui has a hook and now this little 3 year old has taken it as his job to make a lot of hooks, because you always need one wherever you go.  I mean who knows when you will need to fight or change into a magical creature.  The unfortunate side effect of this, is that we have few hangers in our house that serve their function now...

Every hanger he gets his hands on, Harrison snaps the top off and makes it a hook.  FYI, the bottom part gets pokey and hurts a bit when scraped upon your skin.  

It's not the only wierd thing that happens when you play with a three year old, sometimes you find him potty training a blob of plah doh (because that is his baby).  At least he looks dashing in his sweater with a tie that he wore to church.  Harrison was being dropped off to primary, the children's class when he turned to me, held my face and said, "I don't want anyone to tell me to be quiet today!"  Guess we know how well church is going for him!  His teacher says he told her "get me to the fun stuff." If he thinks potty training is going to be more enjoyable that church, he has a rude awakening coming to him someday!

I love having conversations with any 3-4 year old, this cute red head in particular.  He is quite the singer as we drive around chaperoning the older siblings.  He knows lots of songs on the radio, which is unfortunate.  At his age, Grant only knew Disney or children's songs I feel like.  So, when a song comes on that I feel is inappropriate and want to change it, Harrison yells at me.  When I explain to him the words are not good, sometimes he concedes and says, "OH, its a garbage man word."  But, sometimes, we argue about it.  I tell him the song has bad words and he finally relents and lets out a huge sigh, "Hmph, if you say so."  This is typically accompanied by sighs and an eye roll.  Really, 3 year old?  I think enjoying our family and home and life has a lot to do with love and probably a little bit of luck sprinkled in.  Glad we got to have both the last couple of months!

I am Party Pooped!

We have made it through our party weeks and while having a super time, this momma is worn out!  My birthday was the end of January and then Grant had his big day just a week and a half later.  He has finally turned 12!!  Grant has been looking forward to this age for a long time and the biggest reason is because he received the Aaronic Priesthood and became a deacon.  

He is a good hearted son, the best you can have and he has such bright future!  Grandpa and Grandma McArthur were in town for the ordination,

so, they were able to join us as well as the Petrick grandparents for his special step in the Lord's path.  We are so proud of this young man.  

I can't believe my little redheaded baby with the thick luscious lips is now a young man...especially when he gets crazy with some of his peeps:

We took a few of his buddies to Leatherbys to celebrate the birthday boy.  They were sufficiently embarrassed (and embarrassing) when the employees came to sing to him.  We sat nearby, but had enough trouble on our hands at our table!

Grant's actual birthday was on Super Bowl Sunday, so he opted to postpone his family birthday dinner because "people (dad) would be paying too much attention to the game and not his birthday!" Ha!  Well, at least he told it like it is. We had a few families over to watch the game, the commercials and pig out.  It was SUPER bowl fun!

The next day we made Grant his meal choice of Zuppa Toscana and twisty breadsticks before he dove into the 'tower of donuts.'

It was a weekend of Grant and we wouln't have it any other way!!

As soon as Grant's birthday is over, Brenna knows her special day is nearly hear.  Thank heavens!!  Grant had a campout on her birthday, so we had her friend 'game night' party while he was gone.  

The little ladies played partner Tenzi, crush the ice cream cones, musical game boards, uno and Picwits.  They giggled and danced

and had a blast.  It was a party where I was actually wishing we had more time.  The gals were so fun!  We had: Katelee, Emree, Megan, Jane, Brenna, Keira, Kate, Evelyn, Audrey, Averie, Lilly, Teva, Kinley, Madison and Tzipporah.  With that many friends, I was prepared for chaos, but we were pleasantly surprised!

Brenna is lucky to have lots of good girls to play with.  The other day I heard her and her friend Kate playing 'doctors office' with their stuffed animals.  Too bad for those patients, because I heard Brenna evaluate each one and declare,"I'm sorry, but this one has to be executed."  Next, patient, "oh  dear, I'm sorry Kate, she will have to be executed too."  Sometimes it's a wonder these people are not scared of her! 

For Brenna's family dinner, we made her drumsticks and peas and apples before we dug into her cake.  

I'm not even going to say what kind of cake this was.  Dave couldn't tell (how rude!)  so I'm going to leave it for posterity to guess.  Just think, she had a game night themed party the night before.  ha!  

Brenna had been asking for a bike all week and a day before her birthday told us that we were rude we hadn't got her one.  I asked her how she knew what we got her for her birthday when it hadn't been her birthday yet.  She was sure she wasn't getting a bike because she hadn't found it anywhere.  We let her open her presents (a straw and a little shopkin lego, along with a toy from grandma and Shannon).  There was no crying or complaining, so we decided we would bring out the last gift.  She looked like this when she saw it:

 The bike was a hit!!  We sure love this precocious 7 year old!! She is a great blend of spunky and sweet!  You can't help but be a Brenna fan!

 The other two kiddos have just been playing along and enjoying the festivities.  Katelee had one wicked blood blister from a wart removal...bleh.  As Harrison would wisely exclaim, "That's disguftsting."

 Harrison (and the girls) helped Grant as he worked on a school spanish project cooking authentic foods form Columbia.  Each semester he has had the chance to do some real world assignments.  This past semester one of the countries he was studying was Columbia.  Lucky for us, Janeth Castaneda is Colombian, so she and Adan came over for dinner and had the kids frying taro and platanos

 and making arepas.  It was fun and delicious!  Harrison is a big fan of "Castaneda!"

Two birthdays down!  It has been fun and very busy.  I've asked for assistance a little bit here and there, mostly from my 3 year old side kick.  But, lately, when I ask him to help, he says, "You're a big girl to do it." How encouraging of him! Needless to say, he is not pursuing a party planning career!

A Clean Slate

Our holidays were magical and full of fun!  Santa was able to chat with each of the kids and through some negotiating, explaining and begging, they were wiped off the naughty list and all 4 secured a spot on the nice list this year.  

 Brenna wanted to take Kringle (our elf) everywhere she went and luckily, the day we saw Santa, Kringle had stuffed himself into a jar so that he could be transported around with his special friend.  Brenna had to remind Santa about Kringle...Santa seemed to be a bit forgetful this year and he had some sort of makeover to his beard and face, so Brenna decided it was one of his helpers. 

When she visited with Santa again (proclaimed to be a helper by Brenna) she thought the concept of sending others to hear her requests wasn't such a bad thing after all.  

Harrison just wanted to talk about Santa's candy canes and magic goats, so I'd call his Santa visits successful.  

 

The beginning of December seemed to drag on for the kids.  They kept counting down until the special day would be here.  Good thing we had playgroup

 and school (even if it included terribly big projects, like the science fair) to keep us busy.  Grant was chosen to display his poster and research.  He ate a lot of popcorn for this project...all in the name of science.  He is a dedicated student like that.  

 Of course, we can't forget the holiday recital!  Brenna was a beautiful ballerina with her friends.  

 She spends many days choreographing numbers around the house and instructing small people on how they need to be dancing, so to see her perform on stage is definitely a highlight.  Harrison was laughing hysterically through the performance.  He kept saying "This is super funny!"  We were the only row busting up in giggles at the ballet, though.  

Grant had a full week of school recess, a few days more than the girls.  I was extremely grateful for those days because that is when I shopped this year! We had a piano recital that Katelee was sick for -curse the stomach bug!  But, luckily she recovered in time for a night out at a basketball game with Dave, Brenna and Grant.  

 

Christmas Eve finally came!!!  The kids watched seasonal favorites to pass the time and we were off to Grandma's for the annual Christmas Eve party.  After those fabulous festivities were over, we came home, the kids set up their beds in Katelee's room (except for Harrison, I think we will wait one more year on that).  We told the kids we would get them by 7:15, when we went down there to start our day, they were playing board games.  Apparently they had been up since 4!  Yikes.  But, they patiently waited and played games.  I was so impressed,  they probably just imagined how scary their parents would be if they tried to get the entire house up at that time.  

The initial reaction to the gift room Christmas Day is always a favorite.  Harrison was so overcome, he did this...

and reapeated that he just couldn't believe it!  Ha ha!  We played toys, set up shop in the front room for all Lego sets, 

 dined on our much anticipated Christmas breakfast and enjoyed our morning before heading to church.  

I love when Christmas falls on a Sunday.  It was such a special day-focusing on Jesus Christ and his gifts to us.  We loved spending an hour there.  We had a magically white Christmas, so the kids played outside, we had visitors (Grandma and Shannon and then Uncle Brian and Brooke), and played lot of games.  Pie Face was a hit...ha ha ha!

 This Christmas was declared to be "one of the best ever" by Katelee McArthur. So, yea for that.  

And then the next week came....

Remember the mention of Katelee getting the stomach flu?  Well, it incubated a week before striking the remainder of the family.  Harrison fell first, which is too disgusting to describe.  We thought we were in the clear, but no, Brenna and Grant came down with it at cousin sleepover.  NO!  They soiled Grandma's house good, then came home to where we all were under the weather.  We survived that, but had further adventures-one included expo markers.  Harrison has not been my most mischievous toddler/preschooler, but he decided to try out path set before him by completely letting his artistic talent show on every wall in his room.  

He also explored the beauty of nail polish-all over my kitchen tile and grout.  The fun was not done-he played with water in my bathroom sink, pulling the plug and never turning off the water.  We ate dinner, hung out and later discovered a flooded bathroom.  So far, no damage to the kitchen ceiling.  Yay.  

It was not my favorite week of 2016.  I can not forget to mention my uppercut via Brenna's head to my chin.  

This little doll

was kneeling below me during family prayer.  We started to close the prayer, and before it was completely finished, she pops up and yells 'amen.'  The thing is, my head was still bowed when she popped up, so her head collided with my chin and resulted in a crunch and scream by me.  My tongue started to swell, my mouth filled with blood as both sides of my tongue had been bit nearly through and I started choking on my blood/saliva.  Everyone started wigging out because I'm spewing blood, I'm crying, my tongue is swelling, I can't talk. When they ask to see what happened, I showed them all the inside of my mouth and get a face like Katelee's below..

 Hamburger meat for a tongue, that's what it was.  It took a couple of days for the swelling under my chin to go down and my tongue to repair.  But all is good now!  After a fun New Year's Eve and a day out to the Planetarium and food court for dinner-I was ready to start the school schedule!  

Dave thinks I am crazy because I pop out of bed in the mornings.  I think it is because I love waking up to a new day.  I love Sundays-starting a new week.  I don't mind cold January because of the feel of a new year. The idea of a clean slate and making the day/week/year our best excites me.  True, I get only a couple of hours in to the day sometimes and I am ready to blow, but I get to try again the next day right?  I recently heard a quote "We don't have to be perfect.  We just have to be good and getting better."  So, lets hope that I can get better in 2017...at least one of the days! ha! 

It's Holiday Time and We're Feeling Fine

Well, I feel like the blog post may be misleading-Harrison is currently dealing with some croupy business, but we are feeling fine about the festive seasons!!  Actually...again, that is not accurate for number 4.  He has claimed that he does not care for Christmas or Santa.  He only likes Halloween.  What a scrooge.  I'm hoping the spirit of the season hits him at some point!  While Christmas isn't winning any award for him, Thanksgiving was a hit for everyone...

We decided to do Turkey Day a little differently this year.  We went to the Grand America with just our little fam and basked in the fanciful glory.  

The kids entered the ballroom and Katelee exclaimed, "This is my dream!!"  Who wouldn't love the ice sculptures, the traditional Thanksgiving fare, seafood buffet, all the ice cream you can eat, pumpkin delights (soup, fritatta, ravioli, etc).  SO much to try! 

She ran around like a crazy lady going to the chocolate fountain, dripping with chocolate down her chin. Yea, we are elegant like that.  Unfortunately, she did get sick from the contaminated items dipped in the chocolatey goodness, but at least there were gluten free pancakes!

There were 8 actually.  She didn't dish those up, our waiter brought her the whole stack when we requested a gluten free one.  We stuffed ourselves silly for a couple of hours, then went to visit Aunt Amy and Uncle Mark.  Amy's son Austin was in town, so it was fun to visit with all of her kids for a little bit. Then, we were off to see the movie, Moana. A good time was had by all-some of us watched and some of us napped, but no one came out of the theatre disappointed!  Ha!  It was a unique holiday that we will definitely remember!

So grateful for my little turkeys.  They are wild and gobble up all of my time and I wouldn't have it any other way!  Katelee has been working on a project and she came up to me questioning what my dream is, and I truthfully told her I am living my dream...well, maybe a little more international travel, performing, humanitarian service and changing the world would add to that! Ha!

Dave and I did get a new stamp in our passports in November-we went to Playa del Carmen for a quick trip with his work.  We stayed at an all inclusive resort and did this...

and that about wraps it up! Ok, a little of this too...

Really, we usually run around on vacations, we decided to just chill.  That consisted of spa treatments, food, beach time and relaxing in a cabana by the pool.  It was glorious.  

We were in Mexico on a Sunday, so we got to visit a ward there.  I genuinely love going to wards in other places.  They didn't have anyone who played the piano, so I got to help out with that.  Music is such a gift, one we often take for granted.  

The church was really pretty and I was moved by the love of the members there.  It was testimony meeting and they had to put up a sign to tell people to stop coming up.  While I couldn't understand most of what was said, I could feel the joy and truth and I wanted to hug or high five them all!  

We have so much to be grateful for and one of my favorite annual traditions was a good reminder of a lot of those blessings...

This year our board was full of some of the same incredible gifts, but we also were inspired to put things like 'Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man,' etc Ok, we weren't all constrained to include those figures, that would be Harrison.  Harry is obsessed super heroes.  We even have jingles I am asked to sing nearly every day.  I have a song for Iron Man, Spider Man, Captain America, Hulk and Thor.  I feel like I need to submit them to Marvel and be paid for the catchy tunes! 

I love the super hero phase, I do not however, enjoy the "poopy butt' phrase that is on repeat from our little guy.  Potty humor is in full force and if he follows in his brother's footsteps, it may never pass!  I can take the other names he calls us like when he asked me who ate his piece of toast and I told him that I couldn't help myself.  He said, " you knuckle head."  Harrison has no problem challenging those older or larger.  I asked him the other day why he had two shirts on and he said, "Because Dad did it.  I'm going to kick his hiney."  Sounds reasonable.

Of course he is sometimes very complimentary and helpful.  Every time I leave the house he tells me goodbye and  encourages me to 'come back to our house sometime.'  He gives good advice and tells this wacko 

and Katelee to 'be nice to the bus guy and boys and girls' every morning as they leave for school. He is very holy and if a prayer hasn't been said on a morsel of food that he began chewing, he spits it right out.  He asks constantly if it is Sunday and wistfully follows up with "I love Sunday."  So, he apparently is a good  mix of violent hiney kicking and sweet worshipping.  Good balance.

Now we are on to the next holiday!  I, of course, like 5 out of 6 people (Harrison being the odd man out at our place) love Christmas.  Our church is doing a service initiative to LIGHT THE WORLD this holiday season.  We are participating in that as well as drawing names in our home of someone who lives here to particularly serve as individuals.  I was pretty lucky on who drew my name last week.  I had some great breakfasts...

Tonight we meet Santa and go walk around to see lights.  Last weekend, we visited the North Pole, well, the Seven Peak's Waterslide version.  We all loved it.  They turned their racer slides in to a sledding adventure and hauled sleds and raced.  It was great! The lazy river became a holiday cruise,

there was a magical train ride, 

and a Nutcracker surrey type bicycle ride that we were slightly inept at.  But, we had a great visit at the North Pole and will definitely visit next year.  

As we continue through the month and feel the special spirit in the air, we are trying to recognize what makes this time special-the gifts, the life, the example of our Savior.  Katelee helped us out with that at her family home evening lesson, where she staged us in this very moving Nativity Scene.  It is the best time of year...now how to convince my 3 year old of that!?